Remnants
by Taranova
Summary: All that was found on their bodies was an assortment of letters and a ring. Before the war, there had been life made of shadows. While Roy and Ed live in the past, Al and Riza try to piece together the present. Roy/Ed, disjointed chronology.
1. Remnant

**_Remnants: A Story Without Chronology. _**

**-Roy-_  
_**

* * *

Embers smoldering. And yet, I'm frozen in place. I was capricious.

_I'm capricious, too, old man. __That's why I chose. And I chose you. ____Did you want it? _

Did _I_ want it? Could I tell you, in your perfection, how much you meant to me? How much I longed for you, to feel you, to discard morals?

_Morals? Morals are lies called right and wrong that change according to who controls them. __We fight their wars for them, don't we? Who's to say what's right and who's to say what's wrong? _

You've always known that. Behind your your perfection, behind your guarded eyes, you held the truth. Buried deep like the bones of your mother, it chilled you and conquered you until you choked on the ashes of your innocence and there was nothing left. You were ashamed of your sin, and you were frightened, like a child cast into hell. You were young and already so _dead_ inside.

_Lighten up; you're bringing me down._

Would that make me the devil? I took you in, I held you, I made the nights longer and yet more beautiful than anything you could imagine. Silver pools of moonlight, soft touches, irrevocable sensations that you, at first, denied. I gave them all to you, along with my soul. We could both be an example of the living dead. Shells of bodies, brooding and silent, intertwined in the sad but unavoidable path of life.

_Do you blame me, then? _

I could not control it, can't you see that now? My only mistake was living.

I cradle you in my arms now, brushing the hair from your eyes. They're open. I can see them, dark and empty, hollow, my own reflection embedded within their soft honey hue. I wanted to say these things to your face. I wanted you to hear me and see me.

I'm whispering this all to you quickly, in your ear, because the gates of hell are calling and I can feel the flames already, crackling in the dry air as I pause to lay a hand on your face, feel you for what may be the last time. You're bleeding. I can see that. And you don't scream, for you can't feel pain. Not anymore.

_I don't. _

The sordid flames with the ghastly faces of strangers are prying me away from this world. They're engulfing us, too soon and too slowly. Your blood drips thickly to the muddy ground, and it seems to melt there in the harsh glow of fiery light.

My eyes drift shut and I cannot breathe. There is cannon fire. Distinctive cannon fire, and a thousand voices shouting and screaming. They're running, but they're not gonna catch us. Better take the next train. It's too late for them, so I kiss you, knowing they can't pry me away.

_It always was too late, you know. _

And that's why I can't let you go.


	2. Ashes

**-Roy-**

* * *

And all the butterflies fall

Like warm September rain.

I'm back again.

Torching the leaf, the flower, the mist.

Always sober and getting high

Burning up but staying dry:

I think I want to know

Just how that leaf feels,

When I hold that candle beneath it.

Withering.

The clock forced through a small window,

Man's way of playing God.

They call deceit a shadow;

Something that hides

And lies.

From birth,

We're cradled by shadows.

Only you survived the lie.

Is that why I hate you?

Is that why I love you?

Maybe.

But no matter how hot -

This flame, this candle flourishes -

You cannot be touched.

But no matter how cold -

This flame, this candle diminishes -

It cannot be touched.

By shadows

By lies

By innocence

Or that damned,

white

rain.

* * *

**Long story short, Roy is afraid of poisoning Edward's innocence even if Edo's totally not innocent anymore. Roy still sees him as a kid. White September rain refers to ashes falling from the sky, September an obscure reference to war time. He sees himself as both a shield and an object of destruction; no matter what, he'll protect Ed from anything, including himself, even if that means sacrificing his desires.**


	3. Silver

**-Roy-  
**

* * *

What do you think, Maes? It's pure silver - and yes, the diamond is real. Closer inspection reveals almost a thousands facets. Well, more or less. It was meant for you, you know. But I guess that was a long time ago, and things change, just like these damn trees.

I don't like autumn, Maes. Everything dies and dries up and you get this rain, this wet stickiness, that covers everything like some kind of film. The cemetary is covered with oak leaves, as big as my hand, and they're all wet, musty, cluttering up serenity. It's not the kind of atmosphere I enjoy, Maes.

I think it follows me.

It works with me and against me. It can dry my tears and it can take away my weapon, my defense - though whether or not that's a good thing, I'll never know. I'm not meant to. Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that I've found the one. Someone like you. Someone who obsesses over the ones they're close to; someone who knows when to shut up but chooses not to. Someone who detests violence but won't avoid it.

My life is full of little contradictions like that, Maes. And for that, I am glad.


	4. Hell's Wind

Roy supposed his mother had gotten used to his absence during holidays; their kitchen table was small but two empty chairs made for a bigger space that was easier to clean. Thanksgiving probably didn't taste as good when your husband was dead and your son was at war, but hell - count blessings, count stars. That's what she used to tell him. And he listened, but never followed, insisting that he would if she did.

After all, he couldn't count the stars, so far off and so dull and so bland in comparison to the bright red flares of nightmare spitting off into the distance. He was on guard, was always on guard; he never slept because he had a fleet of men to protect, including a particular alchemist brat.

He kicked up desert sand and watched it cloud the dunes, a nice, heady earthen smell drying up the taste of blood. Makeshift tents and small fires stirred sullenly, throwing shadows on shadows and dust to dust. The night sky above was black, black, black.

He had missed many, many holidays. Christmas spent bleaching the troops' clothes in a muddy river, handing out small pocket bibles to peaceful villages that lined it. Easter somewhere in a deeply dug trench, the shadow of night freezing his men to death as sand eroded their feet and scorpions nipped at their fingers. Edward's head against his shoulder, so many curses bleeding out from those cracked lips. Delirium followed by dementia and then -

It really didn't matter; it was Independence Day, or would be in a matter of minutes according to his still-ticking watch. The dead never rose at midnight; he knew, he'd sat by many graves, hoping to find some specter-friend dance with the devil in the grass-

"Colonel?"

Roy turned around to look. Edward was standing behind him, hair a soft white in the moonlight. Darkness played on his face, the shadows under his bright gold eyes appearing much more tired, much more dead. Roy knew that he had capably entered the war, but a frail innocence had eventually chipped away at his rocky exterior; he was still competent, still Edward, still an obstinate little _shit, _but he no longer was so inclined to argue or have his way.

"What are you doing?" Roy asked, a bit more roughly than intended.

"It's too cold."

"So you come outside? Genius point."

The blond ignored him, crossing his arms for warmth and walking right up beside the dark haired man. At a closer glance, Roy detected his slowly failing health; even underneath the grime and bruises, he was pale with fevered moisture. Ed stared ahead, at the ground, at his shadow on the sand against the dim firelight. "Don't be an ass," he grumbled, before he gently coughed into a closed fist.

A coyote's howl ricocheted on the encampment canvas. "You shouldn't be here, Fullmetal."

"No shit..." Ed stifled a laugh, hiding the implication of innocence long-ago scrabbled for and abandoned. "I just wanted to say hello, is that a crime now?"

"It is when you're being targeted." Roy couldn't put his finger on why he obsessed over the kid's safety, but he assumed it had something to do with the fact that Edward always refused it. "In case you haven't noticed, this region doesn't take a liking to State Alchemists-"

"I know, I know, and I haven't a clue what they'd do to me. I get it. I'm not gonna fucking die." Ed fixed him with a hard stare, eyes roaming up and down his body. He felt his stomach give a dull pang when he realized how thin the Colonel was getting, how his uniform was caked with dirt and something rusty. "You okay?"

Roy shrugged. "Not terrible. Just..." A breeze tickled the back of his neck, and Ed's loose hair brushed to the other side. "Watching." His breath caught in his throat painfully, the sensation like coarse cotton. Edward didn't know - or didn't vocalize - that he was dying. The fever was only supposed to last a week and eight days had gone by in the blink of -

_Several morbid seconds in the trench. _

_Get back, get back _

_"But I can't leave him_

_Can't leave Havoc, Mustang, can't leave-"_

_Shake, damn, all these buildings crumbling down_

_Decay kills, not impact_

_Save your breath_

_For _

_the _

_Flames  
_

It was foolish to complain when you faced death itself. "Are you still cold?" Roy asked, trying to swallow that aching lump. His fingertips tingled, burned by sand and itching for something soft to hold. He would never admit it, but the lonely nights always took him back a thousand years to his childhood, the memories so far away they weren't real, halogen-tinted images that drifted like blacking photographs on a charcoal breeze.

Edward's eyes frowned at the distant stars. Roy wanted to ask what he wished for. Opened his mouth and then closed it.

There were six hundred men in his battalion. 600 troops, and 599 had given up on the stars.

Only Ed could dream and think and wonder, too young to ask when the dreaming should stop; only Ed could possess that (toxic) (feeble) charm that a child could possess, could exist and live even while haunted by sooty hand print stains at his eye's window, elementary sin pushing him onward to what else but demise. He cared, and that care was always apparent in his eyes, so warm and deep and drawing from the sun a brilliant auburn glow.

"I've been thinking," the teen said quietly, glancing quickly to Mustang and back at the midnight zenith. "If we die tomorrow, or the next day, or any time in between here or when we go back home..." He brushed his hair behind his ear, but when the wind neglected to abide him he pulled it up into a ponytail, tying a string around it. "At first I didn't care if I died or not. I didn't give a thought to it..."

Roy scanned the ground with narrowed eyes, watching the sand as it drifted, this way, that way, inexorably drawn into an hourglass of invisible time, a thread of sand-beads working along the stem, up and up, this way, that way, backwards, forwards-

"I don't think I'm ready, Colonel."

Roy sighed, a star shooting past through the corner of his eye. He pulled his cap down further on his head. "The fireworks will be lovely tomorrow, won't they?" He asked, not daring a glimpse at the teen. Ed stood very still for a long while, and then his receding, rustling footsteps on the sand gave way to the flap of a tent opening.


	5. Vertigo

**-Riza-**

* * *

"He wasn't ready."

It's all I can say, and I'm not entirely sure who I'm referring to. It would be callous to elaborate. The relationship that the colonel's men have isn't love, exactly, but something close to it—blistering loyalty, always under fire but never quite dying away. If I tell them what I know is true (that the colonel must have died slowly, that Elric was too young to have lived) they might abandon me for the sake of dignity.

I need the company. I've never helped to organize a funeral before, but this is a special case and I didn't want Alphonse to feel obligated to do so. Everyone is empty, and everything is empty, including the caskets. I've been standing all day, and I struggle to remain that way.

Words are few. A curt hello, weak handshake, firm expression, no smiles exchanged. The Fuhrer paid his respects early, stared a moment at the assembly of flowers (Alphonse laid them out himself), and then left for the reception hall with his wife and son. He was polite, which is more than I can say of the other ranking officers attending; I expect too much out of military men, and I suppose I always have.

Alphonse and I stand next to the photographs, all of them lined in silver that reflects the paltry dust of the parlor. Lieutenant Jean Havoc is smiling behind glass, young and genuine, the uniform wrinkled out of carelessness; Colonel Roy Mustang is dignified, though one could say innocent (or naive), perfect in his youth, disillusioned about his military calling; Major Elric is calm, looking away, no hint of a smile, no hint of anything but determination and a shadow of human frailty.

"When were these taken?"

Everyone's asked me that.

I believe Mustang was nineteen at the time; before Ishbal, but after we had been separated to pursue different training. It sometimes astounds me how little I know about him, how little I care, even when I claim to love. I met Jean only after he had been inducted into the colonel's command, though as far as I'm concerned he joined the military on his eighteenth birthday. The photograph must have been taken around that time.

Fullmetal's is more difficult to estimate. I don't try.

"I don't understand," Alphonse says, the metal armor echoing with the tightly wound voice of the child within. "When Hughes died, he was promoted two ranks, right?"

A touchy subject. I don't respond, because I have my own opinion on the matter.

Officer Falman, preserve him, saves me from any terse argument. He is more sympathetic than I am, though that's perfectly understandable. "Hughes' case was a lot different. The colonel broke military law, and for that, the Fuhrer's being pretty damn generous. Just let it go."

"They didn't do anything _wrong_," he insists.

"I know...but there's nothing we can do, so let it go."

My body's gone cold. I'm the corpse, this is my grave, I'm back in that damn war, the gun's jammed and I'm facing death, the flames are made of ice and water. Pretty pictures on the walls, faces and names I can't forget but will forget. In three days, I'll wander back home, because I can't stay in a place Roy is; in three months, I'll wander further south, because I can't linger in a place Roy was; in three years, I won't be able to wander, because he is everywhere and nowhere.

Eternally.

Alphonse stares at the casket that belongs to Ed, though he knows they're all the same, and technically it doesn't matter where he stares. Edward is dust, burned away, in the sand. Identified by dental records, left to rot in the heat. "Did they ever find out what the ring was for?"

A soft sound escapes my throat; maybe a sob that never grew into what it was meant to be. My hands are tight, my face is pale, and once again I want to sit down and drown and perhaps then Mustang will find me, take me away, tell me I'm just. Dreaming.

And Falman knows, but he slips into ambiguity for my sake, and suddenly I don't want him to be ambiguous; I don't need to be protected from something I can't deny or label as wrong. "The ring was a promise, kid, and if it makes you feel any better..."

"'Until death shall part,'" I finish for him.

Orange light collects dust and the smell of sickly sweet air, turning all of the black clothing into a brighter hue, polishing the wood of the caskets until they reflect mutated, ghostly faces. Us, them, falling into a well where heartbeats collect like water only to get used up too soon, too quickly...

Not ready.


	6. Caetera Desunt

A time ago, there were many words spoken, very loudly, as though to illustrate the raging emotions that constantly twirled in his stomach. It would go on for an hour, at most; one man with an impenetrable obsidian stare, the other with such bottled fire in his eyes that the first could not help but allow the faintest flicker of amusement cross his face. Then in the end, the walls and the boundaries began to wither away into fire and ash, because he would detect the scent of rain and metal, and that would unchain a great vault of memories and feelings unable to be broken away from.

What started as equivalency, what started as innocent business, lost its golden appeal and became something twisted, darker, warmer. Temptation and madness and futile pursuit. Let's drop the conversation. Let's drop all pretenses. So they did, trapped in their own personal domes of confusion and mindless lust.

_Matthew, 26:41_

The darker one never dared to think, only touch, and press their trembling mouths together. Edward is almost sweet, he thought, almost but not quite; because in the flare of moonlight he remembered who it was and under what circumstances they finally unlocked themselves. He pushed him to the ground, gently but not too gently, and pulled at his clothes. Those too were boundaries that needed to be eliminated. It had to go full circle, it had to happen then and now, or he felt he might explode with unfounded desires.

Edward didn't think. To want and not to want were two very different things, on opposite ends of some unwritten line. But despite the nagging, dwelling, unshakable thought that it was all wrong, he went along with it. Because it was undeniably warmth, and he had spent far too long in the cold isolation of his nightmares. So he pleaded and begged in a voice that was unlike his own, feeling the hard dementia of his Colonel's arousal against his body, wanting to escape to a place better off and yet the same.

Then heaven and hell joined together. And when it was all over, and time had passed, and days slipped into silence, some things were forgotten. But there was always the same look, given surreptitiously from the shadows, that implied a much different end, and a much different chain. Regret or guilt that perhaps he had done something unforgivable, though the much quieter conversation they now shared said otherwise.

Edward always returned the stare in very silent understanding.


	7. Lusus Naturae

**-Edward-**

* * *

One thing I've learned about people through all of this philosopher's stone crap: they always see the truth, even if they're not conscious of it. Sometimes they feel guilty over even _knowing_. So they hide themselves. It's like putting a blindfold on. Don't get me wrong; I'm not being condescending here. I've seen _it, _the Truth, or the truth (whatever you want to call it - no matter what it is, It's a bastard) and I kept the goddamn blindfold on for years pretending I didn't care.

Okay. Let me explain this a little better.

Take Winry, for example. She used to see Al for what he was - a good kid, better than most people - and then the skin afterward. Now the opposite's true. She sees the armor. Knows what's inside, but she pretends not to, because although (I think) she loves him more than in a sisterly kind of way, she just shuts that part of her head out. Like she's afraid to love someone who'll never be quite human.

Damn. I've depressed myself. Al, if you're reading my very private and very so-not-girlie-or-gay research journal, know this: You're human. Definitely. I'll get you back. Now kindly get out of my journal.

Okay, how about this. Jean Havoc _really _digs Lieutenant Hawkeye. Like, seriously digs her. Trust me. Here's the issue. He sees the soldier first and the woman after. I mean, she's...attractive, I guess, by certain, um, standards, and she's a badass, like me. She's shot more bastards than he has, and I think that kind of makes him feel like less of a man. So when he's face to face with her he pretends he just doesn't like her at all. But when he's got half a pint of beer in him? Motor mouth. He likes her _guns. _

Back to my thesis, as Colonel Shit-For-Brains so eloquently tells me to start my reports with.

I was dating...going out with..._seeing _someone in the not-optical (?) sense a few months ago. Note: past tense. Because things didn't work out. Like most relationships. It's just that most relationships end from "unresolvable differences" and misunderstandings, or cheating. Not because one person wasn't attractive enough for the other.

Basically, have you ever seen one of those moving pictures with the graveyards and women screaming? I guess it slipped my mind to say, hey, by the way, I have auto-mail and I'm half a person. Do you mind? Because once things heat up, you don't care about that stuff; I didn't care to make more excuses anymore, I didn't care to lie and say something like, "Yes, one of my arms is harder than the other. Interesting, right?"

So when the gloves came off (seriously), things kind of fell apart. I don't even think he said anything, which was fine, I guess, because it wasn't a serious relationship anyway; just a fling. I blame hormones. In the end, the look was pretty much like in those stupid moving pictures, and I was fucking Frankenstein or something.

See, people look at me and they see the automail first and the person after. It sounds stupid. But when you're there, and you're the one they're talking about, you're the one they're pretending not to see, or perhaps the one they can't stop staring at, it starts to vaguely ache where you're supposed to have a heart. And hey, I'm the Fullmetal, I'm not supposed to feel anything.

Maybe I'm guilty of blinding myself to more than one thing; not just the Truth, but my truth. But maybe the blindfold should stay on; what the hell do I need anything for? I've got to stay focused. Do whatever, whenever, however, and ignore the stupid petty shit. Feeling sorry for myself is nothing. Half a man is better than being no man at all.

I'm getting real good at lying these days.


	8. Voices

"Will you stop that?"

"Stop what?"

"That damn scratching. Can't sleep with all that fuckin' racket."

"I'm sorry. Go back to sleep, Fullmetal."

"No. No, it's fine. Not your fault. What are you writing, anyway?"

"Letters."

"To who? If you left any women behind in Central, they're gone by now."

"Not a woman."

"...You should get some sleep."

"I don't need it."

"And I'm tall. I don't wanna have to prop you up tomorrow if we're attacked."

"What's a good metaphor for ash?"

"Do I look like a goddamn poet to you?"

"Humor me."

"Ugh. Ash is fine by itself. Don't know why you're always trying to pretty things up that don't need to be prettied."

"I never do that."

"You're doing it now."

"Not when it comes to you."

...

"Ed?"

"Stop smiling."

"Never."

"What is ash, anyway?"

"What remains after a fire. The parts that stay behind after the rest of the matter dissolves."

"And if we die, Mustang? Will pieces of us get left behind?"

"Our remnants?"

"Ours. Yes."

"Can never tell until the fire stops burning."


	9. His Last

**-Jean-

* * *

**

Never knew it was like this.

Conscious but responding - there's film

A kind of knowing, inevitably tied to it.

Ed, gimme a cigarette, please. Lips don't budge. Solid.

"Can't leave him-"

You're getting smaller, Ed. Goodbye.

Black fuzzy ants crawling on my eyes. Silence, no

More but, this...It's nice. Just me. And. The rain.

Goodbye.


	10. Knowing

She'd seen darker days.

Riza breathed in the hard-water scent of her shower head, the liquid fire running down her body like roaming fingers. To pretend they were fingers, and let her own slip inside herself - well, it was a temptation she couldn't allow. It would disrespectful to fantasize about dead men.

Music played on tape, the static like cackling brown leaves on the forest floor. She listened for a while, finishing up, and then stepped out onto unpleasantly cold tile. Bundling a towel around herself, she went to the kitchen, deciding to put a pot of coffee on. She was much too determined not to smoke. Caffeine was a proper substitute.

It glinted. The ring, abandoned on the counter with an assortment of half-burned poems and letters. She'd forgotten. It glinted.

She examined it. Took it in her hand. Weighed it on her palm; the band of silver was simple, but heavy, tarnished from rain and blood. She slipped it on every finger. It was a bit larger than her ring finger allowed. Edward, she realized, must have fit it differently.

For no fathomable reason (or so she told herself), she started crying; out of pity for the dead lovers or herself, she wasn't certain.


	11. Seeing

**-Alphonse-

* * *

**

Ed's leaving today. He smiles at me like I don't understand. My armor squeaks and I try not to throttle him for it. I don't blame him for trying to protect whatever innocence he thinks I still have, but sometimes, I feel it's not my _my _fault that I'm the way I am. He put me here.

"I'll be back before you know it." He has his red coat thrown over one shoulder. The train whistle almost cuts him off, black smoke making his hair look so much brighter. I know he'll be surrounded by more smoke soon. I worry he won't be able to breathe.

"Promise?" I say childishly. He doesn't expect that. I can tell. He looks small, and scared, but I don't say it. I value my life.

"I don't want you to worry. We've been in worse scrapes. Have faith in your big brother, will ya?" His grin falters when the colonel comes up behind him; touches his shoulder. The colonel doesn't smile, because he's experienced enough to know not to pretend. War is not something that can be taken lightly.

I wish it were me.

I have faith in you, I want to say. I don't have faith in bullets. I thought I was your shield? And here you are, with your downcast eyes, following Colonel Mustang as if walking straight into...

My God.

You already know, don't you?


	12. Impendit Bello

**-Edward-**

* * *

I watch him, even though I know I shouldn't be. I'm watching him now. He has just showered in the rain, let the droplets wash away the grit and black blood of the last two weeks. I would have joined him, but for some reason my feet just sunk in the sand. I stuck my fake hand out and watched the rain tap it, felt it in an odd, unattached way.

I'm still real, aren't I? I'm not entirely a puppet on the military's strings, walking through battlefields on a quest to become a real boy. Maybe.

Brigadier General Hakuro is an odd man. He has a thing for the girls we find in the different townships - I can't do anything about it but sit there, knowing they're going to end up under him by the end of the night, whether they want it or not. He listens to opera, arias, on his phonograph to cover up the noise.

Tonight, it is Rigoletto. And it's what I hear, muffled, two tents away.

Roy looks up at me, rain dripping down his bangs. I'm getting the weirdest urge to go over there and - do _something_, just end this stasis. He looks at me, dark, dark eyes and water. Then he goes back to his journal, writing letters, writing - poetry.

He isn't a very good writer. But it keeps his head clear. I found one about Hughes, deep in there, at the very back where I suppose he figured no one would care to look. I think it's about Hughes. Anyway, I didn't rip it out or trash it, but I did memorize it:

_Full circle,  
Precise as any other calculation.  
If not a bullet, then a sacrifice.  
Which is which,  
And which did you suffer?  
Pride goeth before me  
And yet more than ever  
I ache to burn. _

Whatever. I'm not into that shit. It's kind of touching though, I guess, for him to be keeping his mind sharp out here. He's told me he doesn't appreciate mushy crap, if it doesn't have any heart to it; better to have bad stories with soul, than pulpy bullshit about nothing.

I want him to talk to me. More than just a scrap here, a scrap there (I'm not a dog, don't feed me from the table). It's not just sex. I don't care about that, not anymore, I've got hormones like the rest of the fruitcakes in this freak show but I'd rather just have him alive and whole and bitching at me.

Please. Goddamn it, stay alive. Even if it means I've gotta watch you write about dead lovers in this hellhole _forever_. _  
_


End file.
